Flyingbolt - The greatest

Flyingbolt was a tall, gangly, rather washy chestnut with a white face, and if he never looked very well, that was because he wasn't. He suffered from brucellosis, a debilitating disease that causes inflammation of the joints and cut his career off in its prime. It is because his owners later decided to soldier on when the old horse was in decline, first with Ken Oliver in Scotland and then with Roddy Armytage in Berkshire, that Flyingbolt leaves only a faded trace in the memory. When he first appeared, he came like a comet across the scene.

It was an unlikely arrival. By the Derby winner Airborne, and bred by Robert Way near Newmarket, he had been bought as a yearling by that canny old judge Major George Ponsonby and taken back to his store yard in Tipperary. George was part of the unmatched network of contacts on which much of Tom Dreaper's success was founded. Between them, the two men recognised something in this lanky, short-tempered chestnut.

By the time the horse that had become Flyingbolt was into his four-year-old season, he had joined the Kilsallaghan academy. The first race was a bumper at Navan in the hands of Alan Lillingston. ``The lads in the yard told me that he could really go,'' Alan still remembers. ``He was a huge horse with a giant stride, but halfway down the back, not much was happening, so I gave him a crack down the shoulder. He took off like a jet plane and won by eight lengths. Tom Dreaper came up later and said teasingly, `came a bit too soon, did you?''' The comet was on its way. Flyingbolt won his first ten National Hunt races, including a division of Cheltenham's Gloucestershire Hurdle (today's Supreme Novices') at the 1964 Festival, which everyone remembers for the Arkle-Mill House Gold Cup. Switched to fences the following season, Flyingbolt was even more devastating as a novice chaser, his five out of five record including that effortless win at Cheltenham over 40 years ago in 1965-66, the season that was to bring Arkle the last of his three Gold Cups, Flyingbolt's four visits to England were nothing less than sensational. In the autumn, over two and a half miles, he won both the Black and White Gold Cup at Ascot and the MasseyFerguson at Cheltenham by a full 15 lengths. The latter performance is still burned in the retina - the ground was so wet that spray was coming up from the runners as if they were galloping through breakwaters. Flyingbolt just surfed straight through it regardless of the conditions, Pat Taaffe's long, upright torso hooked up like a braking parachute in restraint.

After winning Gowran Park's Thyestes Chase by a distance under top weight, Flyingbolt was sent off at 1-5 for the Two-Mile Champion Chase on the Tuesday at the Cheltenham Festival. He simply cantered up, and then, 24 hours later, turned out to run a close and unlucky-looking third in the Champion Hurdle.

To be honest, that Champion Hurdle was not the great Pat Taaffe's finest hour, Flyingbolt getting pushed wide and the super-stylish Johnny Haine pouncing up the inside with Salmon Spray. But a month later, the astonishing powers of Flyingbolt in his prime went one step further when this two-mile champion won the three-and-aquarter-mile Irish Grand National with 12st 7lb on his back, giving away almost three stone to the second.

We used to call him `Nutty', because he was still a bit funny-tempered, although he had calmed down a lot. When he was a young horse he was very quirky - he often looked in a bad mood in the paddock, and would bite you if he had the chance.''

Jim Dreaper, remarked afterwards, as he looked back fondly to those extraordinary days of his boyhood when there was not just one wonderhorse in his father's stable, but two. ``And you know,'' said Jim, holding his hands & arms outstretched far apart , ``old Pat Taaffe always used to say that when Flyingbolt was at his best, there was a fair distance between him & Arkle''

Over Forty years have passed since he first blazed over Cheltenham's fences & Flyingbolt's annus mirabilis, it is time we all acknowledged him as the very greatest of them all.

I'll leave you with some quotes, from the people who were closest too him.

Jockey Barry Brogan, who rode him to his final victory at Haydock, was Tom Dreaper's assistant and stable amateur during the 1965-1966 season and had ridden both Arkle and Flyingbolt in their work. In his autobiography he says:

"In my view Flyingbolt was probably the best horse I ever rode - even better than Arkle. I honestly believe that he would have beaten Arkle in the 1966 Gold Cup if Tom Dreaper had allowed him to run."

"For all Arkle's brilliance, I felt Flyingbolt was the better horse. If Pat Taaffe was alive, he'd tell you the same."

For him, the future was limitless.... "Certainly he was as good at seven as Arkle was at the same age.... If progress had been maintained, he would have easily surpassed Arkle, he really was that much better"